Strange world getting stranger

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Apparently there was a less than savory video on Google in which a down syndrome child was being bullied by some others.

This played in Italy among other places since google is pretty near world wide.

The Italians took exception and are holding Google Executives criminally liable for the content and what the Italian prosecutors claim is a breech of their privacy code. They could go to prison in Italy for up to 36 Months.

http://tinyurl.com/m55uzm

This is remarkable in that it has profound implications for all internet providers.

Just as a comparison
In the United States the Federal courts have clearly and consistently held that there are no civil rights when one is online. The Courts have held that the operators of any given internet forum are free to discriminate based on any reason at all and that the participants of any forum have no enforceable civil rights that all internet forums chat rooms etc., are entirely at the discretion of those persons who operate the forum.
These cases have considered a range of challenges from freedom of speech to racial discrimination and handicap access. The courts have turned the plaintiffs away disappointed each and every time saying essentially "If you don't k like that flavor go somewhere else." (paraphrased)

The Federal Courts have also held internet forum operators not liable for all manner of defamation and other personal torts that might arise online. Which translates into a total immunity for ISP providers as well as forum operators.

Most internet providers have used the American Standard. Italy is about to bring all that to a screeching halt.

Italy is saying that if your internet broad cast goes there that you are subject to Italian law no matter where your signal originates.

As a qualifying element this case is all about an event that took place in an Italian School in Turin. Some school child caught it on a cellphone and up loaded it to Google. That may be the extent of Italy's putative long arm of the law. They may restrict themselves to things that happen in Italy.

However, other courts in other countries have sought to hold people criminally liable for things not even touching their nations, seeking to extend their version of their country's long arm statutes so that they can simply declare your conduct criminal and haul you before their courts to answer for things that were not criminal in the nation where you did them.

The woods have suddenly become dark and deep.

[Brent Smith]

I don't know about internet law, but one thing is for sure. The parents of those kids should get a slap upside the head for raising obnoxious little bullies.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

So, if the news media films the episode and airs it on TV, they can be held liable too?

I agree with Brent. Place the blame where it belongs.

-Jeff :)

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

So, if the news media films the episode and airs it on TV, they can be held liable too?

What an interesting question. Imagine an arrest warrant issuing for Ted Turner and Bounty hunters stalking him everywhere.



I agree with Brent. Place the blame where it belongs.

Me too. But that's not the world we live in any more.

[Jeff Dege]

The Federal Courts have also held internet forum operators not liable for all manner of defamation and other personal torts that might arise online. Which translates into a total immunity for ISP providers as well as forum operators.
Do we hold the phone company liable for what people say when talking on the telephone?

[Jason Roehl]

Depending on where the incident took place, there could be some stalking laws violated. (Edit: Duh--this was in Italy). In Indiana (and other states), you cannot film someone else's real property without their permission, no matter what crazy thing they may be doing on it.

[Don Abele]

Cliff, this has come up before though - specifically with Google and China. That's why there is now a China-specific Google and plain old google.com is NOT accessible from anywhere in China. But...this was an agreement by Google so they could at least maintain a footprint (web print) in China.

Neither China nor Italy have extradiction agreements with the United States. And even if we did, I would find it VERY hard to believe that the United States would send a US Citizen to Italy for prosecution, especially for something that is NOT illegal in the US.

So the threats are just that - threats. The most they can do is block Google, as China did, which will result in Google making concessions, as they did in China, and life will go on as we know it.

Be well,

Doc

[Dennis Peacock]

Let's please be sure to leave politics out of this. This is yet one of those threads that could go that way quickly.

Please consider yourselves advised.

[Mike Henderson]

Depending on where the incident took place, there could be some stalking laws violated. (Edit: Duh--this was in Italy). In Indiana (and other states), you cannot film someone else's real property without their permission, no matter what crazy thing they may be doing on it.
That seems like it'd be really hard to enforce. Suppose you took a picture of your car on the street and a someone's house was included in the picture. If you use that picture to advertise your car, are you in violation of the law because the picture included the house?

How about satellite pictures of neighborhoods? Are they in violation?

And what if some criminal act was in progress and you took video of it. After the people are convicted based on your video, can they sue you in civil court or bring criminal prosecution because you took the video?

There must be more to the law than just getting a picture of the house. Perhaps the law includes that the photography be done for the purpose of stalking.

Mike

[Jason Roehl]

Mike, I only found out about it because a friend of mine and several of his neighbors were burning leaves in a country neighborhood. Well, one neighbor didn't like it, no matter which direction the wind was blowing, she would call the FD to come put it out. My friend would have nothing to do with it--"If you come on my property with those firehoses, I'll cut 'em." Anyway, burning of yard waste is legal, but "nuisance" fires can be reported and put out (that's county government for you). My friend and his other burn buddies even tried to reason with this lady--they offered to burn on a day she picked when she would be away. No dice, she hired a lawyer and showed him the videotapes she had made of the fires. That's when all the trouble stopped--her own lawyer told her she couldn't videotape other peoples' properties, and that she didn't have a case.

[Brad Wood]

In Indiana (and other states), you cannot film someone else's real property


her own lawyer told her she couldn't videotape other peoples' properties

ummm, wow. I have never heard of such a thing. I wonder what was behind something like that becoming a law... any idea?

[Darius Ferlas]

her own lawyer told her she couldn't videotape other peoples' properties, and that she didn't have a case.
The world is weird indeed, and all it takes is a smoehwta skilled lawyer to turn it upside down.

How about filming an individual in an act of committing a crime? Forget the house in the background. What about the royalties for filming a person, criminal or not? If the criminal said something while committing the crime he automatically holds copyrights to his own words, so could he disallow any use of those words in court citing intellectual property rights? :)

[Jason Roehl]

ummm, wow. I have never heard of such a thing. I wonder what was behind something like that becoming a law... any idea?

I'm thinking it may have had to do with stalking...remember David Letterman had trouble years ago, and he's an Indiana boy.

I'm no lawyer, so I couldn't begin to discuss the intricacies of that law, I just heard that the trouble-making lady was told she couldn't videotape other people on their own property without permission.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

So the threats are just that - threats. The most they can do is block Google, as China did, which will result in Google making concessions, as they did in China, and life will go on as we know it.

One never knows. It's hard to imagine the US cooperating but, these guys do travel and bounty hunters do operate world wide.

[Eric DeSilva]

I cannot believe the story isn't missing something. The general rule for photographers is that "Property owners may legally prohibit photography on their premises but have no right to prohibit others from photographing their property from other locations." http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

There are cases you see where painting and works of art are fuzzed out in pictures, but I believe that is a copyright issue.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I cannot believe the story isn't missing something. The general rule for photographers is that "Property owners may legally prohibit photography on their premises but have no right to prohibit others from photographing their property from other locations." http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

There are cases you see where painting and works of art are fuzzed out in pictures, but I believe that is a copyright issue.


You are thinking like a Citizen of the finest best most wonderful nation on the planet.

Unfortunately there are no other nations with civil rights are so intimately involved with Constitutional law. They have what they call civil rights laws which (generally speaking) any judge or magistrate can suspend on a whim with no notice to any one. So too the expression of the rights that we fortunate few can take for granted (but never should) are not the same in other nations.
For example in several European nations you can be imprisoned for verbally expressing disapproval of some demographic or other.
Various of European nations have privacy laws prohibiting people from taking their image or publishing it whether for profit or not. And the whole scheme is applied in ways that would make one's head spin. As in this person over here is protected but you are not.

It's weird, and I'm glad I am a citizen of the USA.

One of the things one needs to drum into one's head when traveling abroad is that the things we just assume are out right and entitlement are not necessarily protected at all elsewhere.

Consider your freedom from warrantless search and seizure.
While traveling in the middle east more than once I had to stand quietly and dead center in the cross hairs of a machine gun while soldiers searched my car, ordered me to empty my pockets and submit to a physical search - and that after seeing my United States passport.

It's just not the same elsewhere.

[Eric DeSilva]

Cliff--

I was actually responding to the situation Jason was describing--under domestic law. I can't help but believe there are some facts mixed up there or something.

The situation you are talking about is completely different. Jason was talking about a person's right to film. The issue implicated by the suit you are talking about is an internet host's accountability for hosting something filmed by someone else.

As long as I'm going to jump in, I might as well jump all the way in...

In reading that article, it seems like the argument of the Italian authorities was not that they were being held accountable simply because the video violated local laws and it was on their site, but rather because they did not respond quickly enough to remove the material upon having been told that it violated the law.

I think the same kinds of things could happen here. If someone has a video of something illegal--say child pornography--and posts it to Google's site, the simple fact that it was on Google's site at all doesn't seem to me to make a compelling argument that Google should be criminally liable, and I wouldn't expect a judge to hold them accountable either (presuming they have reasonable controls in place, etc). However, if the FBI tells Google it is there and Google leaves it up for several weeks--recording tens of thousands of hits on the video--do you not think they would be facing a similar suit from domestic authorities? Think about it--I know this area is a slightly different body of law--but hosting companies can be liable under the copyright laws if they get a DMCA takedown notice and fail to do anything about it (presuming it is a valid notice). Seems like the same kinds of principles should apply.

The issue with telephone companies is completely different. They have no control over content and have historically been shielded from this kind of criminal or civil liability. Italy isn't trying to imprison--say--AOL execs here just because the video transited AOL's networks. Big difference between being a content aggregator and a network.

I've spend a fair bit of time traveling as well... While you are right that Americans tend to make assumptions about the rest of the world behaving the way we like to believe we do, and therefore should research the law before traveling, I've always just behaved like a reasonable and polite guy and I've never had an issue in any county.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Cliff--

I was actually responding to the situation Jason was describing--under domestic law. I can't help but believe there are some facts mixed up there or something.

You mean I got all excited for nuthin?



Jason was talking about a person's right to film.

Yah that curious. I'd bet it's an extension of a state law prohibiting taping conversations without permission.

[Neal Clayton]

internet traffic is provided by common carriers. in a legal sense, that means the provider of a service that the public uses are not responsible for the content the public puts on it.

if content breaks a law, law enforcement or a copyright holder can petition a common carrier to remove it, but can't hold the carrier liable for its presence there if they didn't put it there.

hence there will likely be no extradition because these guys are US citizens that broke no US law with their business activity. i would bet the US court's response would be along the lines of "if you don't like google, stop your citizens from using it".